Editorial: Transit feuding not the better way for Toronto

Toronto transit feuding not the better way: Editorial

Toronto city council meets today in a special session to vote on a motion by Transit Commission chair Karen Stintz. The motion, if passed, would mandate council to ask the province of Ontario to ignore the transit plan of Mayor Rob Ford, which envisaged burying the entire length of the proposed Eglinton Avenue light rail transit (LRT). The money thus saved would be used to build LRTs on Finch and Sheppard avenues and modernize the Scarborough RT — essentially resurrecting the “Transit City” plan adopted during the administration of former mayor David Miller, and then cancelled at newly installed Mayor Ford’s first press conference.

Talks aimed at reaching a compromise came to naught last night and the issue, complicated by the involvement of multiple levels of government and various agencies, is rapidly becoming a political debacle of the highest order. Both sides are acting recklessly and with too little care given to the public interest.

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Mayor Ford, who campaigned explicitly on the subway issue, is correct when he says that subways, or at least underground mass transit, is preferable in that it lasts longer and does not disrupt surface transport. He also is right to fear another fiasco like the St. Clair streetcar line, which was overbudget, four years late, runs infrequently outside of rush hour and has seriously disrupted automobile traffic along a central Toronto east-west artery.

But Mayor Ford’s opponents also are right to point out that the advantages of underground transit come with much higher costs — more than the city can afford.

The Mayor has adamantly refused to consider the road tolls and additional taxes that even his allies agree are necessary to fund his plan, which envisions the province paying to bury Eglinton’s LRT while Toronto pays for an extension of the Sheppard subway line into Scarborough.

These differences of opinion might be threshed out in the normal way that such matters are. Yet both sides have girded for political battle, apparently driven as much by spite as by actual policy differences. Today’s vote is being taken in haste, at a time when emotions are running high. This is no way to make a decision about a multi-billion-dollar project that will define Toronto’s transportation infrastructure for generations to come.

The result of this childish spat could be that both sides lose. Metrolinx, the regional transport agency empowered by the government of Ontario to handle transportation infrastructure development in the Greater Toronto Area, had agreed to fund the entire Eglinton Avenue project, to the tune of $8-billion. But the cash-strapped provincial government would be entirely justified in revoking that cash until and unless council gets its act together. Toronto seems determined to give Ontario every reason to do exactly that.

Metrolinx has given Toronto until the end of March to come up with a final transit plan. The Mayor and his allies should make good use of that time, and set aside the petulance and threats. For their part, the Mayor’s opponents should recall that Rob Ford was duly elected to the city’s top office, and did indeed campaign on subways.

Most importantly of all, both sides need to dial down the rhetoric, which has reached alarming, almost laughable levels. On Tuesday, for instance, Councillor Norm Kelly, a Ford ally, seriously proposed that the Mayor should order his plan implemented no matter how council votes today: “I prefer to rest my case on the will of the people rather than on the expression of council.” This is the Vladimir Putin approach to municipal politics.

Transit in the Toronto region has been neglected for years. And with an estimated three million more people expected to make the GTA their home by 2030, the upgrade process needs to begin soon. Toronto cannot afford more wasted time on go-nowhere transit plans.

City council, and the Mayor, must spend the next several weeks in consultations with Metrolinx (which is not inclined to support any plan the Mayor does not approve) to determine exactly what funds can be used for which projects, and which projects the public supports. Council, and the people, should be consulted. That can’t be done in a matter of days or hours. But it can be done within seven weeks — assuming the people who lead this city act like adults.
National Post